Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 13 March 2019.
Thank you very much, Lynne. Let me assure you, we're not sitting back and simply waiting for the implementation of the new curriculum, although the health and well-being area of learning and experience does give us a profound opportunity to change the way in which we talk about health and well-being in our schools. You'll be aware that £2.5 million is being made available in the new financial year, through the education budget, targeted at improving mental health services for young people, informed by youth work pedagogical approaches. Because those professionals working with our youth service often feel sometimes more comfortable and more able and more confident about talking about these very sensitive issues, and we want to use the learning from our youth-work colleagues actually to help inform the professional learning of our school-based colleagues. I can assure you that only yesterday I had a discussion with the official that is leading on professional learning to impress upon him that schools should be able to access professional learning opportunities around this guidance, and health and well-being overall, as part of the funding that we're making available to schools to support improved teacher confidence in this area, which can be really, really challenging for many people to talk about, not least teachers in our schools.